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Hey everyone. Hope y'all are doing well! We're in Jamestown New York for a family function. We're picking up Bri from the airport in a few hours. I dislike New York mostly but it's nice around here. We drove up from Texas which was pretty miserable this time of year. After this it's back to cheese land for a while.

"woke design" = omg the game has wimmin!!!

Really curious about performance benchmarks re: Avowed. Requirements aren't ultra steep, but a good notch above Outer Worlds prior. Nowadays you can't tell anymore what those requirements are for anyway unless specifically stated (which Obsidian don't do). 720p/30fps? 4K/144 fps? Upscaled? Native? With FrameGen or without? And even then..... I mean, Stalker 2 obviously runs worse than "advertised". Whereas KCD2 runs massively better, with even a GTX 1060 still able to churn out 50-60ish FPS in 1080P native, rather than the 30fps that was advertised (on lower settings, mind). I wish there were more projects like this, btw: Taking established tech that may not be the absolute most cutting edge anymore (OH NO! NO HARDWARE BASED RAYTRACING IN THIS ONE!). But that by now is understood and mastered by a dev team. That's how some decent and optimized sequels got made: Underworld 2, Thief 2, Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Pillars 2, Police Academy 2 (no wait!)... It being easier to follow and manage, mainly. Unlike Owlcat, Obsidian seems to have realized that the Infinity Engine was, after all, an (A)D&D 2e game affair. That means only mages had a bigger arsenal of tools at their disposal. Whereas in newer systems, even fighters tend to be kinda non-mages that throw non-spells left and right (28:20 in).

Hey guys, I just come by to say hi. It feels great to see this forum still active.

Ok, so I've played some more Deadfire and finished the first island. Have to say that the TB combat does really feel so much better. Seems like it's the first time I'll actually try to place my dudes in a tactical manner.

Oh, I didn't know that you get discount on pre-order if you have Gamepass. Still, I am happy to wait those couple extra days. I don't think I will struggle avoiding spoilers. I will save those $25 to get the game later, on a proper platform once it gets discounted later down the line (assuming of course, that I want to play it ever again... finger's crossed). You might have noticed that Critical Role joined Mercer in the sequel - companions are mostly voiced by CR cast, and they got some other major roles (Eothas, narrator, Imps). It was definitely a marketing thing as well, though it didn't seem to help them much considering how much Deadfire underperformed initially. Eh, Obsidian has always drawn heavily from P&P, and both PoEs used story adventure sequences to expand scenarios that the game could support. Personally, I still think the ones from White March are the most interesting ones, but Deadfire is good. Neketaka is massive - it is a Hub you will be visiting and revisiting throughout the game, so my advice is to not spend too much time there are any given time. Do a major quest or two if you feel like it, gather quests and bounties and sail out. You can explore districts and all that they have to offer at your leisure, no need to try to complete it all in one go. While initially jarring I think party of 5 is a good choice. You still have a lot of flexibility in how you build your party, and I didn't feel loosing the 6th member impacted negatively my enjoyment of the game. As someone who micromanages my parties, 5 was a very good sweet spot where everyone is actively working on accomplishing something.

I wouldn't call DAVe writing woke. There's one character that's very in-your-face trans, but that's about it. The writing has other problems. There's no moral depth, it's naive, the PC isn't allowed to be anything but super-heroic, NPCs are morally one-dimensional, and it's very non-confrontational. If you want to call all that woke, then I guess it is it.

My early thoughts are that Deadfire feels like Neverwinter Nights 2 and it's expansions in the Infinity Engine, in a really good way. I noticed that there are Critical Role portraits and voicepacks, I wonder if the popularity of shows like that and LA by Night had anything to do with Obsidian going so heavily for that pen & paper vibe with all the skill checks and little details like everyone reacting to you being a godlike. I think that's amazing by the way and I'm all for it, but it's crazy to think how much effort that must have taken, they went way above and beyond anything I've seen before in an RPG. It's super impressive to see how much work and talent Obsidian poured into Deadfire. I've made it to Neketaka and I'm overwhelmed and intimidated by the size of the city, let alone the rest of the game. I have a list of all the companions and sidekicks and where to recruit them, so I'm just ticking those off initially, so far they all seem like an interesting bunch. Did Obsidian say why they reduced the party size to 5? I'd guess it's because it's easier to balance the roleplaying side of things but for combat it's a bit like losing a limb.

Do you have fun while playing Diablo 4?

Well in this case, it's actually quite a systemic thing. In the morning, NPCs get up, get to their box of stuff™ and take out their clothes to put on.... and so this happened. They also notice if something was stolen from them, calling the guards (in a settlement). It's proper NPC scheduling, which makes me remember Ultima VII (and Gothic!). Various NPC dialogue even suggests you should take NPC behavior into account, like when planning to rob someone. "Watch people's behavior. When they go to work, when they go to bed." Reckon I could rob all the village guards off their weapons and armor whilst asleep (they are actually taking shifts, so that the place is guarded all day). In fact, I may just try that. What are they gonna use against me if they catch me thiefing then? Harsh language? Some stuff doesn't work though. For instance, there is a big event coming in the area. And the NPC involved in that, you can only choke her, not kill her. Obviously for plot reasons, then. I actually tried to do that, trying if I could "cancel" the event. But the game wouldn't let you. All I could do was to KO her. Of course, I did so, carrying her body a couple hundred metres, dumping it into the field. Took the keys to her house from her. Then I sneaked around in her and her father's place (which is guarded by guards). I almost forgot about her when all of a sudden she came back, bursted into the place screamed that she was KO'd. The guards got alerted, spotted me and I was forced to run the **** away. edit: Yeah, works. Guarding barefoot and with only their shirts and pants on. Now only gotta clear the guards' weapon chamber (which seems separate, found it though). editedit: Damn, they caught me.

Yes I found PoE2 improved on almost every level and PoE1 was a great game I particularly liked the open-world design of PoE2 and the whole sailing mechanics And great party members to interact with, my favourite being Xoti with her cute Southern accent

This is going to be hilariously useless, but I just cannot stop myself. Please name the element(s) in Veilguard that make it exclude straight males. Provide specific examples and give a proper contextual reading for those. Bonus points if you can make it about excluding straight white males. Posting a video from a self-proclaimed Russian sounding melodramatic c*nt (his own words, not mine) like Gorth gorthed into the discussion a while back does not count, so don't even try to post something with an Info Wars level of objectivity and integrity as proof, we've had enough of that nonsense back when a not very sharp one skarped in the politics thread. Is that a rhetorical question? Dragon Age: Veilguard is basically a medieval high magic fantasy version of Star Wars: Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor. Both of which were commercial successes for Electronic Arts.

Please. I am using vidya gaems to escape the reality of fat, ugly wamen. It's all I have.

Woke go broke is such a dumb movement. They love to cherry pick the games that do badly while ignoring all of the massive hits. Dragon Age clearly had unrealistic sales expectations. It was a long dormant IP that had little buzz around it. The expectation seems to be that it needed to compete with BG3, when the reality is it is closer to the Divinity series. I'd guess the sales of DA:V were probably close to the first Original Sin game. But Bioware was already pretty much dead before this game came out. It had nothing to do with politics. They messed up Andromeda and Anthem and now they've ended Dragon Age. It sucks. Make sure y'all go buy Avowed.

Then again, who asked for a fairly "standard" cinematic action adventure in the Dragon Age universe? Those type of games are dime a dozen. Unlike say, a D&D type of game... Ever since the Witcher 3 hit it big, almost every other action type of game has incorporated RPG elements. This is a crowded space. If Veilguard didn't have the Bioware nor Dragon Age label attached -- would it have gotten much attention in the first place? In terms of gameplay, tone, visuals (considering the reactions to the first trailers already?) And even then, the Bioware brand has seen better times itself... people don't buy into Bioware games blindly anymore after an odd ten years without a truly hit. To me, that's also why the likes of From Software, Larian or now Warhorse are hitting it bigg/er: They came out of niches uncatered to, each in their own way. Gradually builded a (loyal) core audience -- and then managed to expand that without changing the core of their games, possibly alienating the core PLUS losing their edge. Which means that, unlike most, they don't see direct competition on their level of production. Companies like Bioware have been like: "We want Call Of Duty's audience" from the go. I mean, if Obsidian's Feargus hadn't been around back then, even what eventually became Baldur's Gate would have been an RTS/MMO-ish type of affair, two of the largest trends to chase in the mid to late 1990s. It was he who saw the D&D in the demo the doctors had pitched to Interplay... and suggested the change in direction. Despite RPGs being considered deader than dead at that point, and even parts of Interplay marketing having serious doubts. The rest, as the say, was history. And miniature giant space hamsters.

You people made me download Deadfire again to check out the turn based mode. Well, trying to download... for some reason Steam isn't budging at all and I'm downloading with like 100bps. /Edit: Finished download, made my character, started a new game. Damn, I forgot how good it looked. And I love being a pirate in a pirate rpg. Now I just wish the controls would be more like BG3, lol. Also love the TB mode so far... Always hated the RTwP blobbing. Also I honestly wish the dialog would be thinned down a little. There's so much clutter that could be removed ez and it would make for a smoother reading experience. Oh, also I remember that I hated the avatar selection back in the days... still do today. Nothing fits my actual character, which sucks hard.

I wish hardcore mode was included already, by the way. There's a misconception that KCD was a "skill game". Well, it is.... but it's Henry's skill. Now, there's these mini games for everything: lockpicking, stealing, what have you. But how easy they are is big time influenced by your stats... (same as combat, really). It seems you're advancing a good deal faster than in KCD1 to me. Need to check again though. Another win for single-player RPGs anyway, hooray! Not that this'd keep the usual suspects from pushing for live service games and all the crap. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Now One Of Steam's Most Played Single-Player Games

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/dragon-age/bioware-has-reportedly-lost-at-least-half-its-staff-with-fewer-than-100-people-left-and-the-studio-a-ghost-of-its-former-self/ Bioware now has fewer than 100 staff after Veilguard missed its sales target by 50% So the question is really why did Veilguard fail at what matters the most which is always about sales? And I firmly believe that the whole woke design of the game is a big part of this. If you create a game where a big part of that game is party based interaction and you dont create any real options for your biggest target market which is straight men then you are limiting overall interest in the game You can create a game that is inclusive and that game can absolutely be financially successful. Both KCD2 and BG3 are examples of this but these games dont exclude straight men The moment you confuse inclusivity with exclusivity you create a massive problem for yourself

So, like, I just finished grinding out the last season journey objective, which for me was raising 10 Witchraft powers to level 20 (any given build in the game uses five, so that was a waste of time), only to find out that there no longer is an achievement (well, Feat of Strength, that is) for fully completing the season. The one that there is I got yesterday already, because it is only tied to fully finishing the last tier of the season journey. So anyone playing Diablo 4 like @MrBrown and @Malcador - you don't need to bother with anything but fully finishing the Destroyer objectives if you want the Feat of Strength. The bitter irony of it is that I already had those finished before I passed Slayer - because those silly heads and altars were so hard to get prior to the recent larger patch. Googled a bit to see if I missed something, but nope, the change was apparently not communicated. Good job. Good to know for future seasons though. Unless they reintroduce a second Feat of Strength without telling anyone. Le sigh.

My playthrough of KCD2 turns more and more into the REAL THIAF 4. First, I assassinated another bunch of bad guys in their camp one by one with a stab of the knife. Then I stole something valuable from the landlady of the tavern at night -- she just wouldn't give it to me. Whilst I was at it, I decided to play a prank on her and also stole all of her clothes. Now she's actually REALLY running around in her nightgown all day, barefoot serving customers. This game.

Its funny you mention that because other people have said the exact same thing about Xoti, her accent was the biggest criticism about her I loved it, I cant recall another game that has that pronounced Southern accent for a character? But I like the Southern accent so it worked for me

Yeah, honestly, during my first playthrough I was rather lukewarm on PoE1 - I liked it, but thought story was meandering. But, that final reveal ties things up so nicely, I ended up immediately starting 2nd playthrough, doing a very compressed playthrough reading every single ingame book I could find and backed the sequel without the hesitation. I just hope Avowed will be on the level.

I completed Pillars of Eternity a couple of days ago. I had such a good time, I haven't played an old school RPG for a couple of years despite it being my favorite genre and Obsidian made an absolute banger here. It had a really good story, and not having the curtain pulled back until the very end made all the reveals very impactful. I was planning to play something that's totally different between Pillars 1 & 2 so I didn't get bored with the real-time and pause genre but after the last couple of hours of PoE1 I just have to know what happens next now so I've started playing Deadfire immediately. I've basically just started, I'm about to repair the ship and leave the first island. It was a bit jarring for the first hour or so with the new UI and going from a typical medieval setting to a swashbuckling pirate adventure but it's already obvious that the quality of the writing and RPG mechanics are so much improved here. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the rest of the game.

The "WTF weird ending" really just felt like the product of lame storytelling that wasn't able to effectively tie together the grounded reality of the world/universe that the movie had constructed and the simple, relatable human story that it wanted to tell. We have a hard sci-fi story that should have concrete issues and solutions (or lack thereof), but it in the end, it just comes down to...the most base character emotions and beliefs driving us towards a magical resolution that is only the most tenuously connected to the real physical world. Which, hey, if you at least enjoyed the preceding two hours and if you liked and cared about the involved characters, that might just be alright and you'll get into that emotional ending and accept it for what it is, or you'll at least forgive it. I...did not.

Swen Vincke likes this. (KCD II also managed to soar past the 1 million units day 1).

Well, because it didn't sell well . Though why a game wouldn't sell well is sometimes difficult to understand, and I would advice against using personal preferences as a reason why other people didn't buy the game. I don't know Veilguards cast enough to parse if there is any validity to its critique (from what I understand romances in Veilguard are rather underdeveloped to begin with). My personal interesting in Veilguard: 1) For me Dragon Age as an IP is not a very strong one. I didn't love a single title in the franchise, and as such I am not particularly invested in seeing the story through. I was mixed on Origins, and leaning toward negative for both sequels. 2) Bioware doesn't inspire confidence in me. The last game I truly enjoyed from them was Mass Effect2. They need to really deliver for me to pay more than a handful of bucks for their title. 3) Marketing for Veilguard didn't make be believe I would find the game enjoyable. I didn't like the tone of the trailers, and gameplay footage looked dull. 4) The reviewers whose opinion on Veilguard I was looking for, found it rather underwhelming. The writing examples they have showed made their critique seem legitimate.

Surpsingly enough, yes. With some exceptions like the tempering system (tempering is great, the RNG of it that can destroy equipment worth a lot, well, not so much), the core gameplay and "endgame" of Diablo 4 are pretty solid, the best the game series and ARPGs are outside of Diablo 2 (and possibly Grim Dawn), but the seasonal mechanics are lacking, more often than not. I just recently learned that there's an odd and an even team at Blizzard working on seaons in parallel, which explains a lot. The odd team is clearly worse at creating fun seasons than the even one, as all the really good seasons were even numbered. The current one is season seven. That I can't stop myself from grinding out the seasonal objectives because they used to have a hidden achievement, well, that's hardly the fault of the game.

I am currently dying of a covid infection, and so to celebrate the occasion, I decided to re-watch Rosemary's Baby. While my temperature spikes to 102 and above over the next few days (if current evidence as well as my first bout with the miserable fake news disease that's bound to disappear - like a miracle! - any day now were indications), I'd like to think to think that my illness in some way compares to It's a great movie: shame who made it, but this at least is one occasion where I can separate the art and the artist, maybe because it feels so much like Mia Farrow's movie than anything else. Now, I must return to my fever dreams.